The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-11-19
THE EXECUTION OF THE ANAR0H-
lists.

cag0 again historic. FlrSC OF AmeTlcan
cities to suffer by the Anarchistic pro-
gram of the murder of the police, as
representatives of the law and order
Anarchy seeks everywhere to overthrow,
Chicago was the scene on Friday, Nov.
IL, of the tragic ending of the terrible
affair which had its beginning at the
Haymarket massacre of May 4, 1885.
August Spies, Albert r. Parsons,
Adolph Fischer, and George Engel, four
of the convicted Anarchist conspirators,
who were adjudged guilty, under Illi-
nois law, of the murder of the seven
policemen, suffered the extreme pen
atty of the law at the Cook County Jail,
at 1854, A. NJ, of that day. Louis
Lingg, another Of the originally con-
victed conspirators, committed suicide
in his cell on the previous day. The
death sentence Of Samuel Fielden and
Michael Schwab was committed by
Governor Oglesby to imprisonment for
life, in the penitentiary, where Oscar
Neebe, the eighth Of the number, is
already serving sentence of fifteen
years for completely in the same dread
full crime. Such is the final record Of
justice in this now celebrated case.
The decision of Governor Oglesby,
which was announced on Thursday
evening, was awaited with painful anx-
iety, and the Communication Of the SEN
tence of Fielden and Schwab, as the
least guilty of the convicted seven, was
and is, very generally approved. TWAS
the tempering Of justice with mercy !;
the evidence to the people that there
was no thirst for vengeance on the part
of the law, and that clemency could be
extended to Fielden and Schwab, with
out doing injustice 10 society, and with
due regard to the terrible exigencies Of
the occasion. The pressure on our kind
hearted Governor for Communication was
severe it continued almost to the hour
appointed for the execution. Fielden
and Schwab are indebted for their COM
mutation, undoubtedly, to the letters
of Judge Gary and the prosecuting at
torney, Mr.. Grinnell, who united in a
petition to the Governor for clemency
toward these two conspirators.
The execution of these prominent
leaders of Anarchy in this community
is most terrible lesson, which will not
be lost upon their followers and SYM
pathisers. No doubt there will be a
continuation of the nonsense that these
men were hanged for their ultra politi-
ical opinions, and fell as victims to the
established order of society, as organ
lied on capitalistic basis. The good
intelligence of the masses of the Amer
lean people may be trusted to take care
of that argument. These men were
sincere and devoted opponents and plot
tiers of Anarchy, and the American peo-
pie have been receiving constant les
sons during the last two years, as to
what that means. The social revolu-
ton which Spies and Parsons advo-
Gated, and plotted to secure, signifies
the overthrow of the existing order of
society by force and violence it is the
theory of reform which finds its chief
instruments in the deadly missiles of
scientific murder, and that avails itself
of the unrest and poverty of the masses
to instigate the devilishness of the
French Revolution, and the Commune
of Paris, and to cause the streets of
| American cities to run with innocent
blood. In a country where the ballot
is in the hands of the citizen for the
righting of public wrongs, and where
the people are protected in their So
cial and political rights by the safe
guard of laws enacted by the people
themselves, the social revolution pro-
posed by the anarchists is rightly re-
garded as an attack On the results of a
progressive civilization, and its defend
ers enemies of the public welfare, and
misguided victims of delusion sure to
end in violence and blood.
1t was as members of a conspiracy to
inaugurate in this city an outbreak
against the authority of the law, result
ing in the deadly bomb thrown on the
fourth of May, 1886, and the murder of
the seven policemen, that Parsons
and Spies, and their companions,
were tried, convicted, and have now
been executed. The sympathy tenn
porarily aroused in their behalf among
the workingmen of the country, in
whose interests they masqueraded as
friends, while fomenting the agitation
that resulted in murder, is, we are con-
WINGED, only passing wave of thought
less sentiment. The appeal of these
anarchists to the future will not be
successful. They have made their last
pose as martyrs, and history will not put
them in any honorable niche. They
were enemies of the best interests of
the workingmen of our land, and had
not the law laid its heavy hand upon
them, might have drawn thousands of
misguided friends into the vortex of
their own destruction.